INDUCTION: The 1995 Royal Rumble – The Wrestlecrap Class of 2000

Normally, the Royal Rumble is something to look forward to for wrestling fans. With thirty of the top guys battling in one match, how could anyone screw it up? And while WWE somehow did manage to screw it up for most of the past five years, no Rumble match was ever quite like the one the company threw together in 1995, perhaps the WWF’s worst year ever from both a creative and a financial standpoint.

Knowing the disaster in the making he had in front of him, Vince McMahon used seemingly every trick in the book to try to make the match passable, and while it was, to quote Vince, a gallant effort, my proboscis would grow if I told you the 1995 Royal Rumble was anything less than a headache-inducing embarrassment.

That year, the Rumble match would have only sixty seconds between entrants, rather than the usual two minutes. Vince hyped up the 1995 Rumble as the fastest-paced ever, requiring great conditioning. Yes, the Rumble itself was faster-paced in that people entered at shorter intervals, but it didn’t mean anyone in the match actually had to move any faster. In fact, it required less conditioning than any Rumble before it, since a wrestler had to last only half as long to make it to the end. It’s a bit like trying to get in shape by driving to work every day, since it’s way faster and therefore more strenuous than biking or running.

The other special stipulation for this Royal Rumble was that the winner would not only receive a title shot at Wrestlemania XI, but would also be accompanied by Pamela Anderson.

So when Pam arrived at the arena, who should greet her but a mob of freaks!

When WWE gathers up all of its oddballs into one segment nowadays, it’s always a set-up for Ron Simmons to walk in and say “Damn!”

When the WWF did this in 1995, it was them showing off their actual roster. Really, take a look.

Nearly every misfit and weirdo on the scene was in the Rumble match that night.

The first man to enter the match was Shawn Michaels. The Heartbreak Kid made a kissy face while flashing the letters “TK,” standing for up-and-coming country singer Toby Keith. Suck it, Double J!

If I could re-arrange the Congressional districts, I’d put U and I closer together!

No, actually it stood for “Themis Klarides,” the former Raw girl who would become the only wrestling personality to win an election in Connecticut.

The second man in was The British Bulldog.

Davey Boy didn’t wear his heart on his sleeve, but he did wear this penis on his tights.

Judging by the caliber of the first two entrance, you’d think the WWF was really pulling out the stops to put on a Rumble worthy of Pam Anderson, since it looked completely stacked.

Then reality hit in the form of an Appalachian mountain man dressed as Bruiser Brody with Nazi tattoos. Keep in mind that “reality” in 1995’s WWF was pretty weird. Eli Blu, by the way, is the first Wrestlecrap inductee in this match.

Next out was the wrestling garbageman Duke Droese, the second consecutive Wrestlecrap inductee of the match…

…followed by a Heavenly Body…

…Sione, the third Headshrinker…

…and the other Heavenly Body.

Now, you might think that the famous ending was the only memorable moment of this match… but not if you’re Earl Hebner, who surely remembers taking this unexpected plancha by “The Dumpster.”

Then there was Doink, who was never inducted as a character, but who was responsible for two horrific Survivor Series matches that were, and was accompanied by Dink, one of the first inductees to the site. So I’ll add him to the count. Three.

Next came Kwang, the masked ninja from The Orient (or Puerto Rico). Four.

Kwang would eliminate Doink a few minutes later. To give you an idea of how low on the totem pole Doink was by 1995, he jobbed to Kwang in the ninja’s last match. In the opening match of a house show. After Kwang had already shown up on TV as Savio Vega because the WWF had decided to retire the ninja character.

The number ten entrant was the returning Rick Martel, who, despite his lack of lapel button explaining this fact, was a model. Five.

Finally, Owen Hart entered, and this match at last had another contender to win and challenge for the title at Wrestlemania…

…until Bret Hart attacked his brother from behind before he could get to the ring.

Son of a bitch! (Sorry, Helen)

Our next entrant was Timothy Well, Wrestlecrap inductee number six of the match. It’s pretty clear that Vince saw the list of guys he’d have to shove into the Rumble to fill up all thirty slots and freaked out, deciding to make the match as short as possible and to throw as much at the fans in rapid succession that they wouldn’t know what hit them. I mean, can you imagine waiting two whole minutes for the next entrant, only for it to end up being one of the guys from Well Dunn?

But what do I know? The crowd ended up popping huge for Timothy Well… well, actually they popped huge for Owen Hart’s elimination just seconds after stepping into the ring, which happened off-camera during the thong-wearer’s entrance.

So one of the few legitimate contenders in the match got eliminated in three seconds, but no worries: halves of three atrocious tag teams were ready to fill the void, averaging 17 whole seconds apiece: Timothy Well of Well Dunn…

…Luke of the Bushwhackers (who, amazingly, have never been inducted as a team)…

…and Jacob Blu of the Blu Twins (Wrestlecrap inductee number seven).

By now you will have noticed that this Rumble was chock-full not just of tag teams, but of some of the worst tag teams in WWF history.

As if the one-minute intervals and four consecutive sub-30-second entrants hadn’t yet driven home that the WWF was trying to get this battle royal over with as quickly as possible, Davey Boy and Shawn then cleared the ring to reset the match. Basically, they unclogged the toilet that was this Rumble match.

Then came the King Kong Bundy, Vince’s pick to win it all because he was so fat.

After crushing the Wrestlemania main event hopes of Mo from Men on a Mission (eight) in three seconds…

…he faced off with fellow big man Mabel (nine), who immediately started on the slowest elimination in Rumble history…

…very gradually pushing Bundy over the top rope and to the floor.

Bundy, disillusioned at his failure to win the big one, then took up a second career trying to fool the public into thinking the Sandy Hook massacre took place. Or something.

Next came Bushwhacker Butch, who lasted 19 seconds…

…followed by Made in the USA Lex Luger, whose failed Lex Express campaign was not only the definitive moment of his WWF career, but was another early inductee into Wrestlecrap’s hallowed halls. That brings the count up to ten. Still, Lex was the first entrant since Owen Hart to have a legitimate chance of winning the whole thing and getting a title shot, and astonishingly, he was not eliminated in under a minute.

The Rumble then continued on its roll with the twentieth participant, the outstanding athletic newcomer Hakushi.

Ha! No, it was Mantaur (eleven). “Jimmy Cornette is really high on this Mantaur,” said The King. You know, I can think of a lot of sentences that include the words, “really high” and “Mantaur,” but I didn’t expect that one.

Mantaur would last nearly ten minutes until Lex Luger demonstrated that the indomitable American spirit could achieve anything, namely dumping a wrestling cow out of the ring.

Next came Aldo Montoya (Wrestlecrap inductee number twelve), who, like Timothy Well before him, wore ridiculous-looking underwear where it didn’t belong.

Wrestlecrap inductee number thirteen Henry O. Godwinn then went to work (by which I mean wrestling, not hog farming)…

…where he was followed by both of the Smoking Gunns, who, as cowboys who went to college on rodeo scholarships, ranked among the more believable gimmicks in this match.

Bob Backlund, the previous champion and only former WWF champion in the match, walked out next to hopefully add some intrigue to the match.

Instead, he was sneak-attacked by Bret Hart and eliminated in 16 seconds…

…and the only reason he lasted that long was because he sold the Hitman’s offense and took forever to stand up. Here’s Lex Luger waiting patiently for the elimination spot, stopping briefly to give Steven Dunn a friendly reminder to get the hell out of the way.

Dunn (Wrestecrap inductee number fourteen), by the way, had entered while Backlund was being assaulted on the outside. You know, the real shame isn’t that this Rumble was packed with jobbers-to-the-stars, but that it could have had so much more star power with the WWF roster available at the time. Besides actually letting Owen and Backlund spend more than a few seconds in the match, Vince could have thrown in some of the Superstars from that night’s undercard. It’s not as if there were a rule against wrestling twice at the Rumble; just the year before, Tatanka, Bam Bam, Owen Hart, and Bret Hart all pulled double-duty, with the Hitman co-winning the Rumble after failing to win tag team gold earlier in the show.

So while Bret and Diesel were tied up in the WWF title match, that still left Jeff Jarrett, Razor Ramon, IRS, Undertaker, Bam Bam, Tatanka, and the underdog team of The 1-2-3 Kid and Bob Holly, both of whom were still bigger stars than half the guys who actually entered the Rumble that year.

Coming in at the lucky #27 spot was throwback “Captain Redneck” Dick Murdoch, whose sole purpose may have been to provide, along with the Smoking Gunns, a redneck counter-balance to the Blu Twins’ and Henry Godwinn’s hillbilly contingent.It’s all about diversity.

Murdoch certainly wasn’t supposed to eliminate eventual winner Shawn Michaels, although there were a few close calls, with Lex Luger inexplicably making the save for HBK each time. Maybe he didn’t trust a one-off wrestler like Murdoch not to screw up the whole match, but Jerry Lawler speculated that the babyface Luger had made a deal with the heel Michaels.

“Lex Luger does not make deals!” said Vince. “You should know that.” That would explain why Lex would work for months without a WWF contract, although him showing up on the first episode of Nitro would suggest that he did make a deal here and there, after all.

Our final three were radioactive mutant-turned-wrestler Adam Bomb (Wrestlecrap inductee number fifteen)…

…Fatu…

…and Crush in his final appearance with the WWF before spending a day in jail and returning as a hardened criminal.

Next came the second great purge of the night, as the remaining space-fillers were eliminated en masse. The highlight of these eliminations was Dick Murdoch crashing onto Henry Godwinn, who may have accidentally outshone Michaels by hanging on to the top rope for dear life to stay alive.

The Rumble came down, of course, to Bulldog and Shawn, the only two men in the match capable of going for forty minutes (except of course for Owen Hart and Bob Backlund, who each got tossed out in seconds).

Essentially, this Rumble was a one-on-one match between Michaels and Bulldog, albeit one with constant interference by big muscular guys in garish colors, wild makeup, cowboy boots, and thongs. If Shawn and Davey Boy had ever wondered what it would be like to wrestle in the middle of a gay pride parade, they got their answer on this night.

After a number of false finishes, The British Bulldog clotheslined Shawn Michaels over the top rope, and, as we are led to believe in all the Royal Rumble flashbacks, convinced everyone that the match was over. In truth, the crowd mainly held its breath while the fans in the front row stared at the feet of Shawn Michaels, who was still visibly hanging on to the top and middle ropes. Vince McMahon seemed to be the only person in the whole arena who thought the Rumble was over. Well, he and Davey Boy. And the sound guy.

To recap: One!

Two!

He got ‘im! He got ‘im!

No he didn’t. And in ran Shawn to dump Bulldog over and win the match.

Poor Davey Boy. In the 90s, it seemed he was always losing to Shawn. He dropped the Intercontinental, tag team, and European titles to HBK, lost the ’95 Rumble to HBK, and would have lost the ’95 King of the Ring finals to HBK if Vince hadn’t lost his mind and left him off the card, then eliminated Michaels in the first round to make way for King Mabel.

And when Vince shouted “one foot” over and over again, it was probably just wishful thinking.

Vince, wanting to be sure of what exactly just happened, went back and narrated the match’s climax, but to be honest, with all the excitement in his voice followed by crushing disappointment, it sounded like he was narrating one of his own before having to apologize to Linda.

​

It’s amazing the sheer number of bad gimmicks appeared in this match. Not only would over a dozen gimmick wrestlers in this match end up being written up on this site as the very worst in wrestling, they were all inducted in the very first year. Fully half of this Rumble’s roster popped into a young RD Reynolds’s head as soon as he decided to start a webpage about the all-time stupidest characters in pro wrestling.

But Shawn Michaels, who crawled through a river of Wrestlecrap and came out clean on the other side, posed triumphant like Andy Dufresne, knowing that at Wrestlemania, he’d be escorted by Pamela Anderson to the main event.

Or by Jenny McCarthy to the semi-main event.

Hey, it could have been worse.

The next guy to win a Gimmick Battle Royal would get a cobra clutch for his trouble.

A wrestling fan ever since the days of Wrestlemania IX, Art graduated from college in the same building where Art Donovan called King of the Ring 1994. He also runs the "How Much Does This Guy Weigh?" blog, where he reviews New Generation-Era Monday Night Raws. Follow him on Twitter @Art0Donnell.
Email at: art@wrestlecrap.com

People, rightfully ripped the 2015 Rumble to Shreds, but that had nothing on this abortion of a Rumble. At least this years Rumble was good, despite Triple H winning it mind you (at least, storyline-wise, made sense). This, this was just sad

I’m actually glad the Bushwhackers haven’t been inducted, because I don’t believe that the Bushwhackers were Wrestlecrap. Yeah, their gimmick was goofy, but that was par for the course in the Hulkamania era. As The Bushwhackers were all about harmless fun, but they were over, especially with the kids and no gimmick that accomplishes exactly what it is meant to do should be considered Wrestlecrap. I’m not saying they’re sacred cows, but they’re not exactly Tekno Team 2000 either.

I agree completely. There’s nothing wrong with the occasional comedy gimmick in wrestling, as long as it’s done well. And the Bushwhackers did it well– they got into their characters, never took themselves too seriously, and looked like they were having the time of their lives in every match. Plus the pops they used to get from crowds were unreal.

Yeah. Wrestlecrap should infer that they lost money, or didn’t make money. The Bushwackers are a lot people’s favorite team – my father, not a big fan, still loves them. They’re not good, but they’re in no way wrestlecrap.

Oh this Rumble pissed me off so much back in the day and it sadly doesn’t have to do with the sheer amount of Wrestlecrap that made up its participants.

Back in the day Viewers Choice would scramble the pictures of the PPV instead of blocking you out right. So you could still hear things perfectly. It was like listening to a radio broadcast of the event. Usually they’d do it after the Free for All Match. Since this was before the Free for All was instituted, I was able to watch the entire IC match and the entrances for the Taker/IRS match before everything went all funky colours and crazy lines. It’s too bad because the dark match before the event was Buck Quartermaine (Not a Wrestlecrap inductee?) vs. The Brooklyn Brawler

As for the Rumble itself, possibly in part because of the scrambled screen and Vince’s bombastic commentating, I thought Shawn Michaels had been eliminated approximately 37 times. So when I “heard” Bulldog’s music playing at the end, I was pretty ecstatic because I was a fan and wanting to see him get a chance at the World Title. Of course had I seen the picture I would have seen Michaels dangling on the other side and no fancy camera cutaways could have masked the fact that the ending was a complete croc. Of course logic never applies to pro wrestling but yeah let’s play the guy’s music prematurely, let’s not verify that Michaels actually was eliminated, let’s allow him to go back into the ring while Bulldog is celebrating instead of restarting the match, etc etc. Maybe I’m still a wee bitter about the whole thing.

Yes I gave this way too much thought and don’t get me started on the whole Michaels entering at #1 to win it all, only to win the whole damn thing again the very next year. Considering Flair won it at #3 in 1992 and lasted almost twice as long, I wasn’t impressed.

On an unrelated note, I thought the TK on Michael’s glove stood for “The Kliq”, even with it surrounded by a heart and all, I figured it made sense since he had only started to shove his head up Diesel’s butt to become the Backstage darling he would eventually be famous for.

On another unrelated note, the Heavenly Bodies were never inducted? They were both very good wrestlers and I thought “the Gigolo” Jimmy Del Ray perform some impressive maneuvers but their gimmick was pretty crappy I found.

Ah yes, scrambled PPV. I “watched” so many WWF events this way. I remember after Kane debuted that his ringpost pyro would always unscramble the screen for a few seconds, albeit in a red-washed photo negative kind of way.

And, for some reason lost to time, In Your House: Revenge of the ‘Taker never scrambled and I got a free viewing. Made my year.

Yeah, I remember when they’d scramble the picture rather than black it all out.
I listened to Survivor Series 1993 for free. I assumed they’d have stopped that by 1995.
We both got to “watch” really bad entries in the annals of PPV for free.
I’m not even sure Survivor Series 1993 was worth watching, even for free.

wow. this happened in the years I weened myself off wrestling. I can’t remember exactly when I stopped watching but I started losing interest in 93. missed most of 94 and skipped 95 entirely. started watching again at the beginning of 96. I guess I got lucky as far as that goes.

I’ve heard how terrible it was that year but why so many undercard matches to take the starpower out of the match? so there was literally what 5 guys out of 30 with a realistic chance of winning and two of them went the whole Rumble while two others got dropped in a matter of seconds.

and the fact Pamela Anderson was laid out as a prize should have made the guys left out actually want to be in it. this was back when she was hot and Hepatitis free ( I think). and for the record, the WWF made Bulldog look like a chump pretty much his entire career. one of my mark out guys was always DB especially when he and Dynamite were a tag team. They always got screwed.

One of the most idiotic ways was during Bret vs Backlund with the whole towel throwing incident. Davey Boy was Bret’s corner man but while chasing Owen around the ring, tripped over his own feet and knocked himself out which set up the finish to the match. The endless jobbing to HBK…….not to mention getting Rock Bottomed onto a pile of dog crap years later.

Far too young to have watched this, but good grief was that Royal Rumble line-up pathetic. Why on Earth did Bret Hart, a man (In his WWF Character anyway) of upstanding character, sneak attack and ruin two guy’s chances, despite being heels and being some of the only GOOD wrestlers during this match? Could you imagine if John Cena snuck into RR16 and eliminated Kevin Owens and Brock Lesnar, like Bret did here? Could you imagine the pure unadulterated rage on the Internet? A very good induction

Same goes for the cowgirls Billy and Bart – Billy for being a guy obsessed with his own butt and for his part in the whole Billy and Chuck thing and Bart for the Brawl For All and the New Midnight Express.

“…where he was followed by both of the Smoking Gunns, who, as cowboys who went to college on rodeo scholarships”

Made me think of an old Simpson’s episode with Lenny…”Oh you’re only calling us a cow college because we was founded by a cow.” The nod after was the exclamation point 🙂

I am not surprised Triple H won this years rumble…honestly…it will not surprise me when WWE does a skit where Triple H gets crucified, resurrects and ascends from the ring to rafters to sit at Vince’s right hand…he’s been calling himself “The King of Kings” for years…would fit right in his his and Vince’s delusions of grandeur.

As for the 1995 Rumble, didn’t watch it. Ever. When I heard the results, I hated it. I never liked HBK…prancing little prima donna. At that time I liked Backlund and Bret…but I loved Hakushi. Jinsei Shinzaki’s monk routine was the only religious gimmick that worked.

As for mid 90’s ppv…I remember my dad and I were out of town and we were at a hotel. PPV had WCW Bash at the Beach…so we listened to it. I enjoyed it until the main event…which had Hogan in his megalomania. I couldn’t stand Hogan between 1993-1996…until he became Hollywood. That was an honest gimmick for him.

Finally! This match has been inducted! I mean, the sheer number of crappy gimmicks, the fact that Backlund and Owen only lasted seconds while Mantaur lasted 10 minutes, and the fact that they cleared the ring before King Kong Bundy and Mabel, the two biggest guys in the match, came out instead of waiting for them to come out and clear house to establish them as big threats. At least it didn’t last long.

I remember the days before cable and satellite and just had local channels. I lived in the Bay Area but got stations from Sacramento (go fig?) anyway, channel 2 had Saturday morning’s main event (Hogan era) but it was all scrambled pictures and wavy lines and body parts not lining up right. I would sit really close to the TV (like a few feet away) just to see if I could see any action in the ring. The sound was good, the commentary was clear but this was in the days of early Vince, Gorilla Monsoon and Bobby Heenan (probably the best commentating team around, before, after since) I usually didn’t see any finishers or close up shots but knew when wrestlers were running the ring doing clotheslines and leg drops and flying from the ring posts.

I remember renting RR 95 from the local vid store and being semi absolutely disappointed (this was in the days before Netflix and Blockbuster but Hollywood video was just starting up). I was missing Hogan and disappointed that Undertaker was in the midcard instead of being a main eventer (was a huge Taker mark). My facts are hazy because this was the era I was tuning in and out before tuning out 10 years later altogether and the fact that my screen was scrambled. I wasn’t a big HBK fan then as I was later and Davey Boy seemed promising but now that I look back, I think you are right, Vince pretty much screwed him over his entire career, making him a cheap knockoff of Bret Hart and trying to establish some kind of British Invasion thing.

So that makes CHRIS BENOIT truly legit to enter the Royal Rumble in 2004 at #1 (with better star power) and stay in the match for over an hour to win it even though HBK was the first to do it? Everyone agree?

Surprised Vince hasn’t done anything to destroy that record yet but he will someday/

I enjoyed this year’s Rumble and, given the end-game is likely to be either Reigns or Ambrose being put over clean in the Wrestlemania main event, have no qualms with Triple H winning the title given that he hasn’t held the belt for seven years and is far better served and more entertaining as champion than as an authority figure in a suit. Plus it makes total sense from a story standpoint.

Great induction, but I did notice the conspicuous absence of a link to buy the Wrestlecrap Archives. If there were ever an induction that displayed what the archives had to offer, this one would be it!

IMO – the last, best RR was 1992. You still had most of the old school guys in there, and the start of the Hulk hate when he pulled out Sid. They even had to edit the crowd noise and re-do Gorilla’s comments for the home video and clips to keep Hogan as the good guy in all this.

And Heenan at his best.

“It’s not a skirt – it’s a kilt, a kilt. Why you no good skirt wearing………….”